Low cost of living in Bulgaria’s four largest cities

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The cost of living continues to be very low in Bulgaria, but so does the purchasing power. In a ranking by numbeo.com, which includes a total of 193 European cities, the four largest Bulgarian ones, Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Bourgas, are within the lowest fifth.

On the continent, all five cities with the highest cost of living are Swiss. In Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Bern and Lausanne, the cost of living index is 141 to 127, while the purchasing power is very high too.

The other end of the scale contains the European cities with the lowest cost of living. Four of them are located in Ukraine, and one in Kosovo. They are Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kiev and Priština, where the cost of living index ranges between 24 (Kharkiv) and 29 (Priština). The purchasing power index in Kharkiv is 27, compared to 142 in Zurich.

All four Bulgarian cities included in the ranking are located between places 161 and 171 (out of 193). Sofia’s cost of living index is 43, Varna’s 42, Burgas got 41 and Plovdiv 40. Among those cities, the purchasing power index is the highest in Sofia. The capital got 60 points, while the other three Bulgarian cities got 48 to 54.

Sofia is an inexpensive city, in comparison.

The index released by numbeo.com also lists prices for everyday items people need or want. While a meal in an inexpensive restaurant in Sofia costs about 5 euro, it would be 12 euro in Linz (Austria).

For one liter of milk, a supermarket in Sofia would charge about 1 euro, but only 71 cents in Hamburg, even though the Northern German city has a far higher cost of living.

A monthly pass for the public transport system in Sofia is about 25 euro. In London, the equivalent of 148 euro would be charged.

In comparison with other Eastern European cities only, the four Bulgarian cities included are located in the middle of the list, which contains 47 entries. In this region, Martin (Slovakia), Prague, Bratislava, Moscow and Kosice (Slovakia) have the highest cost of living, while the low end is composed of five Ukrainian cities.

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